Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Has anyone else ever agreed with you by publicly saying you have earned $500 million?
When I go for a job, they tell me that my labor is worth a certain dollar amount. I might feel that I should be paid more, but that is irrelevant. The value of anything is based on what someone says they will pay you.
So, has anyone agreed with you on the $500 million?
No one has ever told me that they think that I have $500 million coming to me. I once was speaking to my brother Steven and I casually observed that “I expect to make millions from this.” He said: “everyone knows that you’re not going to make millions.” Steven loves me. So that was not goonishnesss. That was his sincere take.
The $500 million thing is not something that I came up with on my own. You Goons pressed me into that. You never try to make the case that Greaney really did include a valuation adjustment in his retirement study (I wonder why). You always argue that there’s no money to be made pointing out the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings. You say: “Oh, how many people do you have posting here?” Or: “How many sites are linking to yours?” Or whatever. I want sites linking to me. I want people posting here. So I felt that I needed to address that.
The point that you were making was that research-based strategies are not popular, that only Get Rich Quick (Buy-and-Hold) strategies are popular. I obviously want to see that change. So I had to ask myself — What is it going to take to make it happen? This is not the only area in which something that is bad for people is more popular than something that is good for people. There was a time when the companies that make cigarettes used to advertise their health benefits: “Live a Long Life, Smoke a Ciggie and Relax!” Now you don’t see that. Doctors became alarmed when they saw research showing that smoking causes cancer and they worked up the courage to blow the whistle on the demonstrably false claims. Then it all changed. Today you hear people promoting products and services that help people stop smoking. That’s what we need to see happen in the investment advice field. We need the idea of AVOIDING the Get Rich Quick impulse to become more popular and the idea of giving in to it entirely to become less popular. How will it happen? We need to not just permit honest posting but to reward it. When there are rewards for posting honestly rather than penalties, we are going to see more and more honest posting.
The rewards can’t go just to me. It makes sense that I would see very big rewards being that I have been working this hard for over 17 years now. But we want people like Wade Pfau to be rewarded too. Wade had visions of being awarded a Nobel prize for the research that he co-authored with me. He also had fears of seeing his career destroyed by you Goons. What if Jack Bogle had spoken up and said “this is amazing work, this is worthy of a Nobel prize, I wish that Lindauer individual would knock off the funny business.” Had Bogle said that, Wade would not have flipped. He would have persisted. Millions of people would have learned about our research, It would have been written up on the front page of the New York Times. Prices wouldn’t be where they are today. We all would be living better lives.
Wade earned that comment from Bogle. And that comment would have changed the world in a very big and a very positive way. You don’t defeat a group of internet Goons by appeasing them. You defeat a group of internet Goons by EXPOSING them. And that statement by Bogle would have exposed you Goons. He wouldn’t have even had to have said that he thought that Buy-and-Hold was bad or that Valuation-Informed Indexing is good. All that we needed to hear him say is that the Bennett/Pfau paper was exciting stuff, that everyone on the planet needed to learn about it and consider its findings. We need to as a society reward research-based investment advice as much as we do Get Rich Quick stuff, if not more. That’s the key to everything.
We send a message as a society when we determine how much money an activity will earn the individual performing that activity. You Goons are right that it says something that I have not made a dime with this stuff for 17 years. The statement that we make as a society when that happens is that: “Valuation-Informed Indexing is not worth much.” That’s a bad statement. Greaney got the numbers wildly wrong in his retirement study. He hurt lots of people. We should want to help those people. We should as a society want to send the message that: “Valuation-Informed Indexing is awesome.” We can send that statement by awarding $500 million to Rob Bennett in compensation for his amazing work of the past 17 years. That sort of payment would change everything.
I obviously earned that money. Shiller predicted the 2008 economic crisis. His research shows us how to avoid such crises in the future (teach every investor alive on the planet the importance of market timing). Anyone who says that it would not be worth $500 million for us to avoid the next economic crisis is not thinking straight. It’s worth a whole big bunch more than that. If my compensation for my work of the past 17 years is going to be determined by the value I have added to the world by doing it, the number is going to be a lot bigger than $500 million. I offered to settle for that amount because I want to get the ugliness behind us and I think that the public announcement of a settlement would help us get there.
There are three things that are going to cause Valuation-Informed Indexing to start spreading like wildfire. One is me being awarded a settlement of $500 million. I guaranty you that I will be the keynote speaker at the next FinCon event the year after I am awarded a settlement payment of $500 million. Everyone is going to want to know how I did it and how they can go about earning a similar amount. Two is you Goons being placed in prison cells, where you belong. No one is going to want to employ criminal tactics to promote Buy-and-Hold once you Goons have been placed in prison cells. So the day that that happens is the day that things start moving forward at a rapid pace. Three is us all seeing an article on the front page of the New York Times talking about all of the wonderful people who have endorsed Valuation-Informed Indexing and about the abusive tactics that the Buy-and-Holders have employed to keep discussion of it suppressed for 38 years. The intimidation stuff only works for so long as people feel that they are isolated in thinking that it might make sense to follow a research-based approach. No one is going to feel isolated ever again once this stuff has been written up on the front page of the New York Times.
The last words of my book are: “I offer no apologies. No apologies whatsoever.” Too often people who make the case for Valuation-Informed Indexing do so in a tentative way. There’s nothing to be apologetic about! Research-based strategies are wonderful. The reason why people are tentative is that they sense that posting honestly will enrage the Buy-and-Holders and we all want to do what we can not to offend others. That gives the Buy-and-Holders an edge. That’s what we do not want to do. We have the better approach, We should say so!
One thing that I can do is to say: “Yes, my work is worth a lot more than $500 million and I am happy to accept that amount as part of an effort to pull us all together and get us all working for the same life-affirming goal.” You Goons like to say that I engaged in “bad behavior” by pointing out the error in Greaney’s study. I see it very, very differently. I think that was wonderful behavior. I think that every last one of us should be doing all we can to make people aware of errors in retirement studies. I am proud of that famous post of May 13, 2002. Very proud of it.
No one has ever told me that I will be receiving a $500 million settlement payment. The way in which our society works in every field of human endeavor other than the investment advice field tells me that. In every other field we reward positive contributions and we penalize criminal stuff. We need to start following that policy in the investment advice field too. I think that we will start doing so in the days following the next price crash. I think that the people who have done good work to get us there will be rewarded handsomely at that time. My $500 million payment will send a very strong message to lots of people. Good for me for playing my part in sending that message, you know?
I only wish that I had had the courage to start posting honestly three years earlier, you know? Maybe if I had played it that way we would be talking about a $600 million settlement payment. Holy moly!
We should reward good work and we should discourage bad work. So says Rob Bennett. Opening every site on the internet to honest posting re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is the most important public policy issue before our nation today. So we need to reward those who do what it takes to turn this in a positive direction. $500 million is nothing when you think of the benefits that will follow from permitting (and encouraging!) honest posting.
I earned every penny of that $500 million. And all of the people who hesitate to say so indirectly send that message by their silence. No one is going to be afraid to say it in the days following the next price crash. The trick is working up the courage to say it today when doing so would do a lot of good. People are afraid to stand up to you Goons. But I have a funny feeling that we will see some work up the courage to overcome that fear when they realize that there’s $500 million or some similar figure in play when they do so. Let’s show people that there can be rewards for doing honest work in this field as great as the rewards for pushing the smelly Get Rich Quick garbage.
Shiller would not have been awarded a Nobel prize if this stuff were not of immense importance, I mean, come on. A $500 million settlement makes the statement that needs to be made in very, very clear terms. Terms that no one listening in could possibly miss.
My sincere take.
Filthy Rich (Someday Soon!) Rob
If you have $500 million coming to you, then why do you need to go out and get a job?
“ I only wish that I had had the courage to start posting honestly three years earlier, you know? Maybe if I had played it that way we would be talking about a $600 million settlement payment. Holy moly!”
$600 million? Why stop there. Maybe you should be paid $600 Bazillion and be named leader of the world.
If you have $500 million coming to you, then why do you need to go out and get a job?
There are two reasons.
One, even though I have a high level of confidence that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, I am not infallible and there is at least some chance that I am wrong. The reason why I have not sought corporate employment for so many years is that I have high confidence that the investing work that I have been doing is going to eventually pay off big-time. But it hasn’t happened for 18 years and I am now low on funds. So, given that it is at least possible that Shiller is wrong, the prudent thing for me to do at this point is to seek corporate employment.
Two, even if Shiller is right, his research does not tell us when the crash will arrive. In the three earlier bull/bear cycles that we have seen in U.S. history, a crash came within 10 years of when the CAPE level hit the mid-20s. But that’s no guaranty that things will always play out that way. The historical record is not large enough to tell us with any precision WHEN a crash will come (I believe that the historical record is large enough to tell us that prices will always eventually drop to below fair-value levels, but that’s something different). The ten-year mark was 2006. We saw a crash in 2008 but prices did not remain below fair-value levels for very long at all. So we should be expecting another crash but we cannot say with any precision when it will come. What if it takes five years? If it is going to take five years, I need to seek corporate employment now. Again, I do not think that it is at all likely that it is going to take five years. But I do not think that it would make sense for me to put off seeking corporate employment once I have completed my book given the circumstances that apply today.
Statistically, my chances of making money to live on for the remaining years of my life from my investing work are far higher than are my chances of making good money from corporate employment. But given how much my assets have been depleted over the 18 years, the prudent thing is for me to seek corporate employment once my book has been completed. Or at least that is my sincere take at this point in the proceedings.
Asset Depleted Rob
$600 million? Why stop there. Maybe you should be paid $600 Bazillion and be named leader of the world.
Should a person who discovers the cure for cancer be named leader of the world? Discovering the cure for cancer would be a huge advance. I don’t think that person should be named leader of the world. But I think he should receive a good bit of compensation for his contribution.
Should Mike Trout be paid $500 million for playing baseball. He is the best player in the game. That’s what he is being paid over the course of his baseball career? That’s what he gets paid under our system and I think it is a good system. So I don’t object too much although I am open to hearing proposals for reform of our system where he might be paid a bit less and some others who do amazing work for little compensation would be paid a bit more. But so long as we are paying Mike Trout $500 million for playing baseball, I have a hard time accepting any argument that Rob Bennett, who discovered a big error in the studies that millions of people have used to plan their retirements and then worked 18 years to inform millions of people of those errors, should not be paid that amount at a bare minimum.
My expectation is that, in the days following the next price crash, I am going to have lots of big-name lawyers lined up to take my case and that they will be urging me to demand a lot more than $500 million. The reason why I came forward with the $500 million number is that I personally would rather settle for $500 million and then work with my Wall Street Con Man friends to get things on a better track. I see it as one of my jobs to bring us all together and it is going to be hard to bring us all together for so long as there are lawsuits outstanding. $500 million is an absurdly high number (it’s not absurd in this context but it is absurd in just about any other context outside of professional sports). So I feel that, if I am offered $500 million, I would prefer to just take it and then put any friction behind us and have us all working together.
That’s where I am coming from, in any event. Shiller work is of huge importance. That’s why he was awarded a Nobel prize. In ordinary circumstances, there would not have been any controversy whatsoever attached to my decision to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates. The only reason why we have seen amazing amounts of controversy not for one day but for 18 years is not that this stuff doesn’t matter, it’s because we all know that it matters so darn much that those on “the other side” cannot bear to acknowledge their mistake. So I am have helped every single person on the planet by insisting on my right to post honestly and I have earned very, very, very big compensation by doing so, an amount of compensation that would rightly be considered absurd in just about any other context.
We make a public statement about things by how much money we assign to them. I want the public statement about Valuation-Informed Indexing to be a very positive one. Awarding the guy who discovered the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies $500 million for the 18 years of good work that he has done is the right public statement. Awarding him less than that would not be a terribly good public statement. That said, I don’t think that the award needs to be more than $500 milllion. That’s an awfully big number. So I see it as a number that makes a good bit of sense, not too small and not too big.
My sincere take.
Future Bazillionaire Rob
“ My expectation is that, in the days following the next price crash, I am going to have lots of big-name lawyers lined up to take my case and that they will be urging me to demand a lot more than $500 million. The reason why I came forward with the $500 million number is that I personally would rather settle for $500 million and then work with my Wall Street Con Man friends to get things on a better track. I see it as one of my jobs to bring us all together and it is going to be hard to bring us all together for so long as there are lawsuits outstanding. $500 million is an absurdly high number (it’s not absurd in this context but it is absurd in just about any other context outside of professional sports). So I feel that, if I am offered $500 million, I would prefer to just take it and then put any friction behind us and have us all working together.”
What I don’t get is how this gets connected to you. So, let’s say there is a market crash. How do these lawyers suddenly come looking for you and why? How does this all tie back to you?
Everywhere I have posted for 18 years now, the same basic pattern has applied. There have been 10 percent who say that I am the first person whom they have ever seen talk about stock investing in a way that makes complete sense. There have been 10 percent who hate what I say so much that they threaten to kill my wife and children if I don’t shut up. And there have been 80 percent (I call them the Normals) who are in the middle. The Normals don’t agree with what I am saying. But they think that I should have a right to say it nevertheless.
Over time, the Normals come around to the Goon position that I should be banned. Not because they personally think that discussion of Shiller’s findings should be banned. Because they cannot bear the ugliness that the Goons bring to the table. They are not willing to demand that the Goons be banned; they like the Goons because the Goons are in agreement with them on Buy-and-Hold. So, when the site owners don’t do anything about the ugliness, the Normals resort to asking that I be banned. And then it happens.
I believe that that will change when a price crash reduces the retirement savings of the Normals by 50 percent or more. They are going to be pissed and they are going to want to know what happened. I can tell them. If the 80 percent of Normals stops going along with bans of discussion of Shiller’s research findings, we are all going to get a chance to hear about Shiller’s research findings at lots and lots of places. It will become a money maker. And then support for Shiller’s model will grow and grow and grow.
I pointed out the error in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies long before it became cool to do so. I will not be someone who jumped on the anti-Buy-and-Hold bandwagon after the strategy ruined the hopes of millions to someday be able to afford a decent retirement. I can say that I was arguing that honest posting should be permitted for at least 18 years before the crash hit. That makes me unique. No one has tried as hard as I have to open every site on the internet to honest posting. There is not one in a remotely close second place.
We’ll see, you know? I don’t claim to be infallible. I thought that Motley Fool would shut down Greaney’s Goon Squad in two or three days. The joke was obviously on me re that one, Perhaps that will be the story again. But I don’t think so. We will just have to wait to see how it all turns out.
Fallible Rob
But I still don’t understand how this all comes back to you, as you know, there are millions and millions of comments on boards out there. Almost anyone can find 10% or more that agree with their position on almost every subject. Everyone will also say that normal people agree with them or will come around to their position. Again, how does this all come back to you in which some lawyers seek you out?
This issue is unique in that there is 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is impossible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately without taking valuations into consideration. There is zero research showing that market timing is required. Wade Pfau spent a lot of time checking that one out. And he concluded that there is zero support for the key Buy-and-Hold claim. And this fraud affects every working person in the United States. We all have to invest for retirement. We are all going to suffer the consequences of this massive act of financial fraud.
The real issue is not whether Greaney included a valuations adjustment in his study or not. That one is silly. It takes all of 10 minutes to check out the study and to see that I was right to say that he did not. The real issue is — How the heck did the cover-up of that error continue for 18 years after I pointed it out. That is the one that we all need to deal with if we are going to get this stuff right.
There is a reason why my book is titled “Investing for Humans.” John Bogle was in an objective sense committing fraud when he told people that it is not necessary for them to practice market timing. That is an absurd claim. Market timing is price discipline. If anyone told people that they did not need to practice price discipline when buying cars or sweaters or bananas, they would be laughed out of the room. So Bogle’s position is on its face preposterous. But he sincerely believed it. If someone had given Bogle a lie-detector test and asked him if he believed that market timing is required, he would have said “no” and he would have passed the test.
So this is a funny kind of fraud. It’s fraud in which the people advancing the fraud deceive themselves about how stock investing works before they deceive anyone else. That’s not usually how fraud works. So this is an exceptional thing.
I have studied how this weird form of fraud works more than anyone else alive. I have been on the case for 18 years now. One chapter of my book will examine the safe withdrawal rate issue. But that is only a small part of the story that I have to tell. The remaining chapters will look at what it is about human psychology that makes it possible for so many truly smart and truly good people to deceive themselves so completely about so important an issue for so long a time.
I have something totally different to say about this subject that no one has said before me. Not even Shiller. And it is not possible to explain what has been happening for 18 years now without taking into account the things that I have to say about this subject. So I believe that I have something of great value to offer to the world. And that that value will be recognized in the days when millions of people are suffering failed retirements and hundreds of thousands of businesses are going under and millions of workers are being thrown out of work and political frictions are worsening on both the left and the right.
We’ll see, you know? It hasn’t happened yet. But I believe that it will happen in the days following the crash. I don’t believe that our political system can remain stable if we continue to ban discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research. If we are not going to permit honest discussion of peer-reviewed research, we shouldn’t even have peer-reviewed research. If we want to see Buy-and-Hold remain dominant for all time, we should just shut down all the Ph.D. programs, you know? That would be a more honest and more direct way of achieving the goal.
I don’t believe that we are going to shut down all of the Ph.D. programs. I believe that, when we see with our own eyes how much human misery the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff always causes, we are going to take a step back and reconsider the idea of banning honest posting on the peer-reviewed research. Then we are all off to the races. And I have an 18-year head start or anyone else trying to make sense of this massive (and exceedingly odd in nature) case of financial fraud.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
Front-Runner Rob
“ This issue is unique in that there is 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is impossible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately without taking valuations into consideration”
What specific industry standard states this? How is this even visible to lawyers, etc?
I don’t understand the question.
It is obviously fraud to get the numbers wildly wrong in a retirement study and then to make use of death threats and extortion to keep the error covered up for years.
Are you joking?
How do you think the people who see their retirements fail are going to feel about this when it it too late for them to recover their money?
Did you see what happened to Bernie Madoff?
If current industry standards don’t oppose fraud in the calculation of numbers that millions of people are using to plan their retirements, then we need new industry standards. Holy moly!
Not this boy. No way, no how.
Not a close call.
My best wishes to you.
Industry Standard Advocate Rob
“ I don’t understand the question.”
What don’t you understand? There has to be some standard set as to what research has concluded. That would have to start with what the information was to begin with and who are the people making the determination. For example, if you were interested in the standard of care for a patient suffering from COPD, you could reference a white paper issued by the AMA, which, in turn, would list the appropriate studies conducted as well as the concluding recommendations based on a retrospective analysis.
Now do you understand?
Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize. That’s the highest standard one can meet in this field.
Wade Pfau has a Ph.D. in Economics. He said that he believes that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are “dangerous.” The people who advanced those studies should have corrected them in response to that statement. Instead, a group of Buy-and-Holders threatened to destroy Wade’s career if he continued doing honest work.
It is the Buy-and-Holders who don’t like the standards that apply in this field, not me or an of the others who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. We like the standards. We are seeking to have the standards enforced.
Standards Enforcing (Perhaps Not Today,But in the Days Following the Next Price Crash) Rob
Fama received a Nobel prize. Lots of us have PhD’s.
The only problem is that Shiller’s work did not say what you say. Also, Wade’s books have not said what you say, including his latest book. How are all these lawyers suppose to figure all of this out?
Fama received a Nobel prize. Lots of us have PhD’s.
That’s right. There are Nobel prizes and PhD’s on both sides. So we we should be permitting honest posting at every site on the internet. We should all be trying to figure out which side is right. The way to do that is to hold civil and rational discussions everywhere. There is no other way to do it. This is an urgent piece of public policy business.
Rob
The only problem is that Shiller’s work did not say what you say. Also, Wade’s books have not said what you say, including his latest book. How are all these lawyers suppose to figure all of this out?
Shiller’s work says that valuations affect long-term returns. Anyone who has finished sixth grade can figure out that, if valuations affect long-term returns, there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels. All lawyers have finished sixth grade.
I have on numerous occasions posted 45 statements by Wade that were made in the days before he was threatened and that support me. I have a funny feeling that 100 percent of the lawyers that look at those 45 statements will be able to figure out what is going on here. Especially in the days following the next price crash, when they will have lost 50 percent of their life savings to the pure Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick approach.
We’ll see.
Rob
Shiller’s work did not say to time the market. Period. Wade was not threatened, and he confirmed that. Period.
Shiller issued a paper in July 1996 saying that those who did not lower their stock allocations in response to the insanely high valuations level that applied at the time would live to regret it within 10 years. That sure sounds like a recommendation to engage in market timing to me.
Wade expressed concern over what you Goons would do to him if he posted honestly on numerous occasions. It’s hardly surprising that someone who is afraid to post honestly would deny that he was threatened by the same people that he was afraid of in the first place. Someone who really was afraid would of course say just that. The only way to get Wade and thousands of others to say what they really believe is to stop engaging in criminal behavior. There’s got to be some reason why you are not willing to do that.
If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, we never would have seen a single death threats or a single demand for a single unjustified board banning or a single act of defamation or single threat to get a single academic researcher fired from a single job. Period.
Non-Abusive Rob
Shiller said many times not to use CAPE to time the market. You didn’t listen. Wade said his job was not threatened. You ignored that as well.
Show me a statement where Shiller said that long-term timing doesn’t work. A statement saying that timing doesn’t work doesn’t because people often use the word “timing” to refer to short-term timing, which really doesn’t work. You can’t show a statement in which Shiller said that long-term timing doesn’t work because none exist. And of course he has recommended long-term timing on numerous occasions. That would be an exceedingly odd thing for him to do if he really believed that long-term timing doesn’t work.
Wade said after he was threatened that he wasn’t threatened. Gee, why do I wonder whether he really meant it? He also on numerous occasions expressed fear of what you Goons would do to him if he said what he truly believed. It’s not normal behavior to make such threats. Wade spent 16 months searching the literature to try to fins a single study showing that long-term timing might nor work and was not able to come up with anything. If you knew of any studies showing that long-term timing doesn’t work, you would point to those studies and drop all the intimidation stuff. You use that garbage because you don’t have anything else.
Market timing is price discipline is what make markets work. Have you ever considered how preposterous it is to believe that market timing is not required or might not work? If someone who sold cars for a living told you that there was no need to exercise price discipline when buying cars, would you believe him? I would not.
Anyone telling you that it is not necessary to exercise price discipline in ANY market is working a con on you, Anonymous. I can believe that most of the Buy-and-Holders are not aware that they are working a con and that they follow the advice they give themselves. But it’s still a con.It still hurts people. To say that market timing is not required is an exceedingly dangerous thing to say given the possibility that the stock market might work in the same manner as every other market that has ever existed and given that there is now 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that that is indeed the case. Given the mountain of evidence showing that market timing is 100 percent required and always works, I do not feel comfortable saying that Buy-and-Hold is a sound strategy. Call me madcap, you know?
And if you really wanted to get to the bottom of this, instead of threatening to destroy Wade’s career if he continued doing honest work, you would have invited him and me to discuss our amazing research findings at every discussion board at which you participate.
“Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” That’s what Wade Pfau says when he is not being threatened. And I have a funny feeling that that is what he will be saying again when he is called to testify at your trial.
We’ll see.
Market Timing and Career Threat Opposing Rob
Shiller said to not use CAPE to time the market. Period.
You have a problem with Shiller. Take it up with him.
I’d like Shiller to be more explicit about what he believes. That’s the only problem that I have with him. He obviously believes in market timing. His entire life’s work has been to show that valuations affect long-term returns. And, if that’s so, any investor who fails to engage in market timing is permitting his risk profile to go wildly out of the proper range. That cannot possibly be a good idea.
Given that Shiller has recommended market timing on numerous occasions and that his entire life’s work shows that it always works and is always required, yes, I believe that he believes that it works. But I do wish that he would be more explicit about lots of things. Shiller should issue a statement saying: “The Buy-and-Hold retirement studies get the numbers wildly wrong.” The more people who say that, the more comfortable all the rest of us will feel about saying it. And, when enough people are saying it, we will be able to get those studies corrected and spare millions of people from suffering failed retirements.
We ALL need to talk about this stuff more openly. Shiller changed the world when he showed that valuations affect long-term returns. But the Get Rich Quick urge that resides within all of us encourages us to overlook the research and just believe that somehow this might be the first time in history that market timing isn’t 100 percent required. It’s not enough just to show with research that market timing always works. We have to repeat that message on a daily basis for it to really sink in with people and to affect how they invest their money.
What do you think would happen if someone published research showing that it is a bad idea to drink and drive but the alcohol industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars encouraging people to drink and drive and just about everyone was afraid to call them out on their b.s.? There would be a lot more deaths in car accidents. We humans are not always naturally drawn to hood behavior. We sometimes want to drive when we are in no condition to do so and we sometimes want to convince ourselves that there might be some alternate universe where it is not 100 percent required to engage in market timing.
The job of experts is to help us resist our self-destructive emotional impulses, not to encourage the full expression of them as a means of turning a quick buck.
That’s my sincere take in any event, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Drunk Driving Critic Rob
I guess you will have to convince those lawyers to get your $500 million from Shiller the goon.
I believe that we all will be working together in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.
Several academics told me that we are going through is a paradigm change. They said that persuading people to abandon a discredited paradigm is hard. But they said that the thing that usually gets the job done is a crisis. A crisis wakes people up. Once people see the need for change, they get about the business of doing what needs to be done. The next price crash is going to bring on an ocean of human misery. We will all see the need to move to the new paradigm and we will do what needs to be done.
I wish that we could have gotten down to business on the afternoon of May 13, 2002. It would have been better for every single person living on Planet Earth to have played it that way. I tried, you know? I worked this one hard. But it it takes another price crash to get the job done, then it takes another price crash to get the job done. Whachagonnado?
My best wishes to you and yours.
Paradigm Changer Rob
“ Several academics told me that we are going through is a paradigm change.‘
What academics? I don’t see anyone post anything like that on your website.
I posted the comments.
Work with me to open the entire internet to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research and you will be able to hear lots of people say it in real time and then ask them questions. Sound good?
Those who want to know how investing works can learn. The information is out there. But a lot of us don’t want to know. A lot of us want to believe that the numbers on our portfolio statements are real, even at times when stocks are priced at two times their fair value.
Rob